Money = Happiness

Through the years I’ve at times been hated on for my assertion that I’d be much happier if I could just be rich, or at least very comfortably well off. I’ve always figured that my logic for wanting to be rich was pretty good. You see my reasoning is that I’ve done pretty much everything that I’ve wanted to try in my life up to this point. I’ve found varying levels of satisfaction and happiness in all the places that people will tell you to find “real” fulfillment (sports, education, religion, food) but I still haven’t reached the level of happiness that I want to be at (except when I’m eating good cheese), so I figure why not try the one thing I haven’t tried yet? What is that one thing? M-O-N-E-Y. Cash Money. Dead Presidents. Dolla Dolla Bills Yall. Despite my well reasoned approach to searching for happiness people have still tried to lead my down the path of unsatisfied contentment by claiming “money can’t buy happiness.” Now I can say, scientifically, that they are wrong and that yes, money does buy happiness; well at least it makes you twice as likely to be happy.

Thank God I’ve Still Got Both My Eyebrows

One of the things that I like about myself is that I don’t have a unibrow, though I do have one pesky hair that grows between the left and right brow. It’s really not that big an issue though since it is easily taken care of by one swipe with a razor.

Well, tonight I had a lot of trouble eating chili because more chili was getting in my RIDICULOUSLY long goatee than in my mouth. Even though I’m a fan of having moderately weird facial hair the goatee had to go because nothing, and I do mean nothing, stands in the way of me eating my chili.

So after I finished shaving the goatee I decided to take care of the previously mentioned single hair attempting to be a unibrow. And then for a slit second I found myself almost shaving off my right eyebrow, I didn’t intent to do this, but my hand was headed that way without thinking about it. Thank God I started thinking about what I was doing before I accidentally shaved off half an eyebrow. However this did make me start thinking about some questions, such as: “How would I have explained that at school on Monday?” “If I had shaved off half of the eyebrow should I shave the rest of it and just have one eyebrow, or shave them both and go with the King Kong Bundy look (pictured above). Just wondering, let me know what you think.

They’ve gone too far now, way too far.

The Islamic extremists protesting over the cartoons finally crossed my final line yesterday. They made it personal for me. They attacked something close to my heart. They attacked fast food restaurants (a Pizza Hut and a KFC). I must respond now. I’m not joining the army, unfortunately I can’t hire the A-Team, but I have assembled a team to respond to these heinous attacks on businesses that are so near and dear to me. I give to you my rouge unit of freedom fighters

Tech Support/Reconnaissance:
The Burger King Kid’s Club.














It would take too long for me to do a member by member profile, but if you were born around the same time I was you’ll remember these guys. If you don’t then just click this link to understand why they’ll be collecting the data and keeping the technology going.

Foot Soldiers:
The Chik-Fil-A cows.
In their calendars they’ve played football, extreme sports, and this year they’ve gone with a medieval theme. Certainly athletic enough, and apparently trained in medieval weaponry, they should be useful.

Grimace, the Fry Guys, Mayor McCheese, and the Hamburgler.
Each bring their own talents, but Mayor McCheese will act as a leader among the foot soldiers, and the Hamburgler is our specialist who’s willing to do the jobs of questionable legality.

Taco Bell Dog.
I have no idea how he/she will be useful, let me know if you have any ideas.

The Leadership:
Jared from Subway: Fitness and Nutrition Expert.
Actually I can’t stand this guy. He’s really not going to have any role other than to be a human sacrifice. Enjoy it extremists, it’ll be your only kill

Little Cesar: Field General.
Even though lately all he seems able to say is “Pizza Pizza” he did lead the Roman War Machine, so he’s clearly qualified to get the most out of our foot soldiers.

Dave Thomas and Connell Sanders: Strategy/Organization
I bet you guys thought they were dead, didn’t you? Well they aren’t. Connell Sanders is still kick’n around as an animation. In fact I’d say he’s even more lively in this incarnation. He over strategy and organization since he was known for firing somebody on the spot if their KFC store’s gravy didn’t meet his standards. As for his protégé Dave Thomas, check the date of his alleged “death” JANUARY 8th, 2002. That’s right, my birthday. Back in 02’ Dave’s gift to me was to fake his death so that he could come join me and the others here in fighting terrorism instead of having to run his restaurants. With these 2 around the gray will be right and the attacks precise.

The Burger King: Figurehead/Front Man.
NWA had Eazy-E, Public Enemy had Flava Flav, Van Halen had David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar, Metallica has James Hetfield, and we have the Burger King. He colorful, new, and kinda freaky.

Ronald McDonald: President.
He is the face behind the world’s largest fast food chain. That alone is enough to qualify him for the top spot. Also he’s had great media relations throughout the decades, so keeping him in charge should ensure positive popular opinion.

The time to unleash this mighty force has finally arrived.

Ring the bell, this fight is over.

The battle to be my favorite politician ended Sunday night at 7:45 with a shocking knockout. The knockout blow came from a man nobody even knew was in the fight. Let's send it to this blog's official ring announcer, Jeff Temkin, for the official decision.











"The winner of the match...and Adam's NEW favorite politician...Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi!!!"

Berlusconi pulled off this upset by calling himself "the Jesus Christ of politics". He then went on to say "I am a patient victim, I put up with everyone, I sacrifice myself for everyone."
As another person who is a patient victim, puts up with everyone, and sacrifices himself for everyone, I can understand how he feels (sarcasm is dripping from the keyboard as I type). I'm not stupid enough to call myself Jesus because of it, but I do understand.

That’s the spirit guys!

An Iranian newspaper is having a contest for Holocaust cartoons as a response to the Mohammed cartoons published in Denmark . I guess this is some sort of attempt to show the west what it's like to be offended by a cartoon. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Iran's embassies won't be burned down in westernized countries as a result. Even though the paper's contest won't get the desired effect it is a HUGE step forward for Iran since the newspaper is at least acknowledging the Holocaust as opposed to following their president's lead and saying that the Holocaust was a myth. By the way, this paper shouldn't act as though offensive and anti-semetic cartoons aren't already in Arab newspapers.

In the article about the cartoon contest the guy from the Iranian paper asks a question which I'd like to answer. The question he asks is "Does the West extend freedom of expression to the crimes committed by the United States and Israel, or an event such as the Holocaust? Or is its freedom only for insulting religious sanctities?" The answer is yes, we do extend freedom of expression to our own crimes, take for example Abu Ghraib. Or if you want to go further back consider Mia Li massacre in Vietnam. Both storys were allowed to be covered by the US media as free expression.

Lastly, here's one more observation on how the Muslim community needs to address this issue by categorically denouncing these violent protests. In the U.S. many Christians feel that a human life is created at the moment of conception (whether or not you actually believe this assume it to be true for the time being). As a result of abortion being legal people who feel this way believe that their government is allowing the murder of over a million babies a year. A few people with these beliefs have taken the law into their own hands and bombed or otherwise attacked abortion clinics in response. Every Christian denomination responded to these violent actions by denouncing anyone who did such actions. There was absolutely no waffling among Christians about how what the clinic bombers did was wrong. No Christians claimed that the bombings must be understood by considering how offensive the U.S. government's abortion policies were to the bombers. Instead these radical elements of Christianity were denounced at every turn by every denomination. I think it's time Islam hold itself to a similar standard. If U.S. Christians are able to condemn violent actions by extremist Christians in response to what they see as murder then I think Islamic leaders and lay people should be able to stand up and clearly condemn a violent response to what they see as a blasphemous cartoon.

Good response guys, next time try not to reinforce that stereotype.

I’m sure you guys know about the violence that erupted overseas due to a Danish cartoon depicting the prophet Mohamed wearing a bomb shaped turban. Muslim anger over the cartoon is understandable since Muslims feel it is not ok to depict Mohamed in any form, especially in a derogatory light. Despite this understandable anger Muslim rioting around the Middle East has done absolutely nothing but reinforce the image of their religion that the cartoon portrayed.

While looking around online I found some articles discussing how this situation is just an example of westerners being ignorant of the Islamic religion and as a result insulting Muslims worldwide. There’s some truth to this argument since most westerners don’t have any idea about even the basics of Islam. Unfortunately it’s very hard to get westerners to look past their opinions of Islam when Muslims respond to an offensive cartoon linking their religion to terrorism and violence by starting violent riots that have already claimed multible lives. (In part credit James for that simple yet profound observation).

I’m sure there are those who would say that westerners don’t understand the kind of offense that a Muslim takes to a depiction of Mohamed. Well, I don’t remember deadly riots after the unveiling of Piss Christ.

In the end it's frustrating to me to know that my Muslim friends have to deal with a distorted perception of what they're like due to actions of those half a world away.

Ok, it’s late on the Saturday night before the Super Bowl, time to give my analysis.

First off I’ve got to give some credit to the most unheralded Steeler of them all, Verron Haynes (pictured to your left). Most people outside the city have not clue who he is even though he’s a vital part of the offense. He’s the third and long back. If it’s 3rd and 3 or under Bettis is there to get the yardage, but if it’s more like third and 6 or more Veronn Haynes is your man. He has converted a ton of 3rd downs on crucial drives this season. I expect him to do this again on Sunday and maybe now the nation will notice it.

Also: I think Bettis will have a few more carries than normal. This isn’t for centimental reasons but because throughout the season the team lightens his workload so he’ll be around all year. Now that he’s at what is probably at the last game of his career there’s nothing to reserve, expect Bettis to leave everything on the field and Cower to realize that this is the one time this year he’ll have access to a completely unrestrained Bettis.

With the Seahawks keying on Ward and Randle El expect Cedrick Wilson to have to have a big game.

And even though this is obvious, expect Joey Porter to come up big.

Final score: Steelers 31 Seahawks 16

Never Trust a Wheel with Your Job Search

On the door of one of the professor’s offices here in the library there is a neat little wheel that you can spin. It has different types of law that you can practice as a career such as “Wills,” “Real Estate,” and “Wealth Planning.” Feeling curious I decided to spin the wheel. It stopped on “Elder Law.” Thinking that this can’t be right I spun it again and "Elder Law" came up for a second time. Feeling worried about this I decided I’d spin it one more time just so I’d at least have two options to consider. When the wheel stopped spinning it once again read “Elder Law.” Looks like this summer I’ll be doing an externship at the AARP I guess? I wonder if Aunt Debbie can help out with that?

How did this guy NOT play for UM?????

I’ve previously mentioned what I see as a lack of swagger in this city’s sports fans. Essentially they have the franchise history of the New York Yankees or Boston Celtics and the mentality of the Chicago Cubs. For example, I hear a lot of talk about how great it would be if the Steelers did win, but I also hear just as much if not more about how terrible it would be if they lost. While I can appreciate humility in almost every area of life sports is not one of them (so long as your team is good enough). So, while the city doesn’t have the kind of swagger I’d like to see there is a saving grace and his name is Joey Porter. In 2003 this man was shot in the butt and returned to play in a game exactly 3 weeks after being shot. Yeah, that’s right, you can’t even stop him with a bullet. Every time Porter opens his mouth I’m amazed that he didn’t go to the swagger factory that is (or used to be considering how we've been lately) the University of Miami. To fully understand the greatness that is Joey Porter read how he laid the smack down upon a Seahawk’s player who predicted that Jerome Bettis will retire without a Super Bowl Win.